Recently, users (operators) have come to photograph a subject by using a digital camera having many kinds of operation modes and to take various contents into a portable terminal unit such as a portable telephone or a personal digital assistant (PDA) and utilize the contents. These digital camera, portable terminal unit, etc. each has an input device. As the input device, a keyboard and a touch panel having both of input means such as a JOG dial and display portion and the like are used in many cases.
As for this kind of digital camera, portable terminal unit, etc., a portable information terminal and programs therefor have been disclosed in Patent Literature 1 of Japan (Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 2003-256120, pp. 2-3, FIG. 1). This portable information terminal has a display portion on its terminal unit body and a JOG dial at approximately middle of the body. The JOG dial is provided at a position different from that of the display portion. This JOG dial is rotated clockwise or counterclockwise so that an image on the display portion may be rotated as interlocked with this rotation. Moreover, by pressing the JOG dial toward the body, an image range is changed. By configuring an information terminal in such a manner, a variety of kinds of operations can be performed more comfortably. That is, the JOG dial employs a mechanical structure so that the operator may be given a haptic sense synchronized with any changes in contents displayed on the display portion for each time when he or she selects an input item on the display portion.
Further, some other portable terminal units having a haptic input function has an input function-provided display portion that combines any ones of various types of touch panels and display portions. By this type of portable terminal unit, an operator selects an input item by directly touching an icon display position in a space of two dimensions other than a depth-wise direction of the display portion as viewed from the operator. In such a manner, the operator can perform an input operation through a contacting (inputting, getting a touch of) a variety of icons displayed on the display portion with a smaller eyeball movement than the JOG dial type, thus more directly selecting an input item.
It is to be noted that an electronic device relative to the past examples such as a digital camera, an information processing apparatus, a portable telephone, and an information portable terminal unit that are provided with a haptic input function have the following problems.
i. By a portable information terminal in which a display portion and a JOG dial are separated in arrangement as disclosed in Patent Literature 1, an operator can get only a single haptic sense generated by a mechanical structure, so that this haptic sense does not have a large impact on him or her presently.
ii. By an input function-provided portable terminal unit that combines any ones of various types of touch panels and display portions, when having selected an icon on the display portion, the operator cannot get a haptic sense synchronized with that selection.
iii. In this connection, in the case of configuring a haptic function-provided input device by combining a plurality of vibrators and input means so that a haptic sense may be obtained through an operation to straightly touch its input detection plane, it is predicted that mere combination of the mechanism of separately arranging a display portion and input means as disclosed in Patent Literature 1 and an input function that combines various types of touch panels and display portion will not give a sufficient haptic sense if the operator touches the input detection plane at different speeds.